


Beautiful Oblivion

by genus_species



Category: Emma Approved
Genre: Confrontation, Gen, argument, badly done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-22
Updated: 2013-09-22
Packaged: 2017-12-27 06:39:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/975647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genus_species/pseuds/genus_species
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"That was badly done, and you know it."</p>
<p>Alex Knightley confronts Emma about her Box Hill video.</p>
<p>(Comments and criticism welcomed and appreciated!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beautiful Oblivion

She set up the camera with an untroubled conscience. The morning sunlight shines brightly on the terrarium in the window of her office. She made it in a moment of domesticity, and it sets off the window so well. It’s a nice conversation piece with clients, too—the men and women who come to her for help trust someone crafty.

“Some of you asked,” she says, “if I have thought of Jane Fairfax lately, and what I might do for her.” She smiles. “I really think there is nothing; when someone is determined to make her own way, her friends cannot do anything but let her. She has wanted to teach her whole life—I’m sure I heard the interminable Miss Bates tell me so a dozen times. Jane doesn’t need my help.”

“And after all,” she adds, “at a certain point, it ceases to be ‘I make your life better’ and becomes ‘You make your life better.’ One hopes.”

There is a rap on the door.

“Come in!” I can edit this out later, she thinks. Is it Harriet? Frank? 

Alex eases the door open. “You’re filming.”

“Yes. Can it wait?” She expects him to say ‘Yes, it can,’ and leave her.

“No, it can’t.”

“You look so serious. Is something the matter?” 

Alex shuts the door behind him. He pulls a chair around from her conference table, and places it next to hers. She gets up, reflexively adjusting the camera to include him in the frame. She sits down again.

“Yes, something is the matter.” His face is almost expressionless. She recognizes that blank, careful look. Alex is angry about something.

“Alex, what--?”

“Did you mean to post this?” he says, and pulls out his phone.

She looks. It’s the silly little video she made after Box Hill, “Miss Emily Bates: Or How to Get a Word in Edgewise.”

“Yes,” she says. It comes out defiant. “I thought it was funny, how Emily talked for the entire picnic. I see no harm in it. A slice of my life, that’s all.” She laughs. “Look at that view count! In 24 hours, so many views—the viewers loved it!”

“One viewer didn’t,” he says.

“You?” she retorts. “You don’t approve of anything I do.”

“Not me.” He refuses to be baited.

“Who, then? My father doesn’t watch my videos, and there is no one else’s opinion I care for.” She looks at the camera. “Except maybe Frank’s,” she adds.

He shakes his head. “Emily saw it,” he says. “She’s always been so proud of you, so interested in everything you’ve done. She didn’t like to mention it, but she and her mother so enjoy you talking about your business, and your videos.”

“They watch my videos?” She pauses in surprise, then collects herself. “If she’s seen it, maybe she’ll learn a lesson from it,” she retorts dismissively. “This is really odd of you. To come in a interrupt my filming, over nothing—”

“I think it’s too bad of you,” he interrupts. “To mock a friend, before the whole Internet. She cried, when she saw it. She called me, straight after. She was so miserably ashamed—”

“You’re joking, Alex. It’s quite funny, but unless you’ve got a point to make, I’m shooting a video, so--”

“I’m not joking.” He holds up his phone, unlocks it, and passes it to her. A text from Emily. “i should apologize to emma but i dont think i can right now. not without talking on and on and bothering her again. i didnt know i sounded so bad like that until i watched it. so silly of me, to be crying about it tho, when theres so many real things to worry about. mom is asking what’s the matter. i cant say." 

"thanks for listening, alex. sorry again to be a bother to you too. i had no idea it was me she was filming...”

She hands the phone back.

“Have you read the comments, on your so-successful video?” he says. 

“I don’t read comments. They aren’t useful to me.”

“Do it,” he says. He’s not just angry, she realizes. He’s furious.

“I can’t see why—”

“About half of them are amused,” he says. “They think your video is funny, they know someone like Emily themselves. It’s the other half that might interest you.”

She still can’t understand the look of disgust on his face. She stands, picks her phone up off the desk, goes to her Youtube channel.

Half of the comments are as Alex says: “Ha!” and “I know someone just like that!” and “Maybe the bitch will learn to shut up!” The other half of the comments range from disapproving: “How could you do that to your friend” to vitriolic: “How dare you? I wouldn’t treat my worst enemy that way!” Her subscriber count, she notices distractedly, has dropped by a few hundred since last night.

She tries to smile. “I’ll put my PR people on this straight away,” she says. “I mustn’t damage the brand.”

He flinches. “You still don’t get it, do you?” he says.

“I know you’re pissed as hell at me,” she says.

“And getting more so by the second,” he says. “There’s no point in my staying any longer. You’re not going to get the point. I’ve always thought—”

“And what have you always thought? Do tell! You come in here, barge in, criticize me, criticize my videos that I work so hard on—”

“I didn’t think you were mean,” he says. “A little selfish, a little thoughtless, always concerned for your image and your brand…but this? This is ugly. This is cruel.” He stands up. “Consider this my two week’s notice.”

“What?”

“I don’t want to work here anymore,” he says slowly, enunciating every word. “I do not want to be associated with your brand.”

“I don’t understand.” She does, though. She feels cold, suddenly, as it finally clicks.

“Don’t you? Emma, you aren’t stupid, whatever else you are. That was badly done, and you know it.” He stalks out of the room, forgetting to shut the door behind him.

She sits in front of the camera, too stunned to turn it off.


End file.
